Nigeria’s federal revenue dropped by 11.3 per cent to N845.14bn in February, from the N952.49bn recorded the previous month, the Central Bank of Nigeria has said.
The CBN, in its monthly economic report for February obtained by Financial Street, noted that at N845.14bn, the estimated gross federal revenue in February also fell below the monthly budget estimate of N1.246tn by 32.2 per cent.
The under-performance relative to the monthly budget was attributed to shortfalls in both oil and non-oil revenues.
A breakdown of the report showed that oil receipts, at N496.63bn (58.8 per cent) of total revenue, were below the monthly estimate of N798.83bn and the preceding month’s receipt of N556.82bn.
The decrease in oil revenue, relative to the monthly budget, was also attributed to shut-ins and shut-downs at some Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation terminals due to pipeline leakages and maintenance activities.
On the other hand, at N348.52bn (41.2 per cent) of total revenue, non-oil receipt was also below the monthly budget estimate of N447.24bn and the receipt of N395.67bn in the preceding month by 22.1 per cent and 11.9 per cent respectively.
The drop in collection, relative to the monthly budget estimate, was due to the decline in revenue from corporate tax, Value-Added Tax and the Federal Government independent revenue, the report stated.
“Of the net sum of N682.67bn retained in the Federation Account, the sums of N97.43bn, N35.00bn and N42.22bn were transferred to the VAT Pool Account, Federal Government independent revenue, and ‘Others’ respectively, leaving a net balance of N508.03bn for distribution to the three tiers of government and oil-producing states.
“Of this amount, the Federal Government received N243.36bn, while the state and local governments received N123.43bn and N95.16bn respectively. The balance of N46.07bn was shared among the oil-producing states as 13 per cent derivation fund.
“From the N97.43bn transferred to the VAT Pool Account, the Federal Government received N14.61bn, while the states and local governments received N48.71bn and N34.10bn respectively,” it stated.
The report added that the external sector performance declined in the review month, due to the 11.7 per cent decrease in the international price of crude oil to $58.45 per barrel, at the end of February.
